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Journal of Pragmatics 27 (1997)439-455

On the puzzling 'puzzled can' in wh-questions

Andrzej Bogusiawski
University of Warsaw. ul. Opaczewska 25 m. 33, PL 02-372 Warszawa, Poland

Received February 1995; revised version March 1996

Abstract
The author deals with such occurrences of c a n in wh-questions (cf. W h o c a n h a v e d i e d ? )
where the relevant answer is identical with that to a corresponding question without c a n and
where the conjunction of a short answer of that type and the negation of the respective verbal
complement with the same referent is self-contradictory (cf. * P e t e r , b u t P e t e r h a s n o t died).
It is the author's claim that this unusual kind of occurrence of c a n is due, not to any lexical
polysemy of the verb, but to a special scope of can. In the occurrences under consideration,
c a n does not form part of the propositional function presented in the question, but is applied,
with its ordinary force, to the concept of a definite description equivalent to the definite
description of an argument of the propositional function presented in the question, the argument being suggested by the material of the question and the former definite description
being something yet to be found, in accordance with the nature of questions. This interpretation is also meant to explain the special 'puzzlement' effect of the questions with can. The
kind of definite description which is looked for is suggested also by pragmatic factors. Here,
the mechanism of Gricean 'generalised conversational implicature' seems to be at work. The
author submits his own, more detailed account of the Gricean concept and exploits it in the
analysis. The whole is viewed as an illustration of the interface between semantics, syntax
and pragmatics.

1. Introduction
The object o f m y interest in this p a p e r will be one type o f wh-questions (mostly
direct, but also indirect) where the unstressed v e r b c a n occurs; this type is intuitively
e a s y to identify, but so far as I k n o w , it has not yet been d e s c r i b e d (although its existence and general character has been noted in, e.g., Palmer, 1 9 6 5 : 1 1 7 or B u l y g i n a
and S m e l e v , 1988: 54). T h e f o l l o w i n g will serve as a p a r a d i g m a t i c e x a m p l e in m y
subsequent discussion:
~ This article is a new version of my paper in Russian presented at a linguistic meeting in Certosa di
Pontignano near Siena organized by Professor Francesca Fici Giusti in 1992 (the paper has appeared as
Boguslawski, 1993).
0378-2166/97/$17.00 1997 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved
PH S0378-2166(96)00030-6

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440

(1) Who can have died'?

as used in its most plausible occurrence, viz. in a situation when it is clear that some
particular person from a definite circle of persons known to both the speaker and the
hearer has died, but his or her identification is not a straightforward matter for the
speaker and, presumably, for the hearer, either; by means of (1) the speaker somehow conveys this perplexity, alongside other content of his utterance.
It is the use of c a n in (1) and in any other utterances with a similar characteristic
that I shall call 'puzzled c a n ' . Our 'puzzled c a n ' not only mirrors a kind of puzzlement on the speaker's part, but also appears to be quite puzzling for a linguist. The
point is that its behaviour in discourse is strikingly dissimilar from other verbs with
verbal complements, including even other occurrences of c a n itself. This peculiarity
consists in the fact that an expected short answer to (1) is at the same time a perfectly appropriate answer to another question, a question which differs from (1) only
by not containing c a n . In our case the latter kind of question reads:
(2) Who has died?
Both

(1) and (2) can be answered by saying, for example:

(3) Peter.
Moreover,

both

(1) and (2) have a self-contradictory answer in the form of

(4) *Peter, but Peter has not died.

Notice that (4) contrasts with
(5) Peter can have died, but he has not died.
(6) Peter can, but he has not died.
which are in no way deviant and, in particular, do not show any traces of self-contradictoriness. (5)-(6) are particularly apt as answers to
(7) Who

can

have died?

with the stressed c a n .

Thus, our unstressed
short answer
(3) Peter.
to

(8) Who wanted to die?

can

appears to be really very different from, say,

want:

the

A. Bo~ustawski / Journal ~f Pra~matics 27 (1997) 439-455

441

does not say that Peter died, but only that he wanted to die, i.e., it identifies the argument, not of 'die', but of 'want to die'. At the same time, utterance (4) as an answer
to (8) is by no means self-contradictory (unlike (4) as an answer to (1)).
The latter observation is valid also for the verb can itself in some of its other uses,
even if can is unstressed (unlike in (7)), cf.:
(9) Who can lift this stone?
with an answer like
(10) Peter, but he doesn't and won't lift it.
where, again, no self-contradiction can be detected and P e t e r stands for 'Peter can
lift this stone' rather than 'Peter lifts (is lifting) or will lift this stone'.
The small fragment of the functioning of language we have pointed out is not only
inherently interesting because of the highly important and extremely frequent verb
can involved in it and because of the magnitude of the relevant class of occurrences
of the verb (the occurrences being so numerous and regular). It can also serve as a
convenient springboard for a general methodological consideration pertaining, in
particular, to the foundations of semantics and pragmatics.
Let us start from the following observation. Examples (1)-(4) expose a trait of
can in some questions which has strictly semantic consequences; what I have in
mind is, specifically, the self-contradictoriness of (4) which our experience concerning similar verbal concatenations has never prepared us to expect. This kind of
hard semantic test, the test of contradiction, prompts one to think of a case of
irrefutable polysemy of can: the verb can is, generally speaking, accepted as a notorious instance of a n o n - f a c t i v e expression, but it acts as a f a c t i v e expression in our
interrogative sentences. How can we explain these mutually contrary properties of
what from the viewpoint of its sound features is one verb? The conclusion that what
we face here is a case of lexical polysemy suggests itself with almost mathematical
force.
On the other hand, any claim of polysemy (should one talk about it in earnest)
must put one on one's guard: the theoretical principle which we may dub as the principle of 'moderate monosemiophilia' is unshakable (even though we are wary of
indulging in any kind of 'polysemiophobia'); and it is so because of the very nature
of our purported, i.e. scientific, search: we want to know what true, rather than spurious, semantic rules there are, over and above their multifarious implementations or
realizations.
Is there no way of protecting can from its being ascribed the fairly chimerical
additional meaning of 'puzzlement' which would only be found in a narrow domain
of some wh-questions (not even all of them; cf., e.g., w h y - q u e s t i o n s which never
exhibit, for reasons I shall not go into here, the feature proper to (1) as I have
described it)? Isn't it possible to obtain the 'puzzlement' effect of our questions by
accepting ascetical semantics and putting other factors to work, factors whose functioning in language at large is undeniable anyway, i.e., by observing that scheme of

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A. Bogustawski /Journal of Pragmatics 27 (1997) 439-455

linguistic description which on all counts deserves to be regarded as desirable? I

want to answer these questions in the positive.
It is worth noting that, apart from theoretical consideration, the non-existence of a
separate meaning of the verb c a n in wh-questions like (1) is made probable by the
fact that a similar phenomenon is easy to find in other languages, i.e., in the respective close counterparts of c a n , as well; in all likeliness, its nature is, ultimately, universal. Cf.:
(11)
(12)
(13)
(14)
(15)

(French) Qui a pu mourir?

(German) Wer kann gestorben sein?
(Bulgarian) Koj mo~e da e umrjal?
(Russian) Kto (bto) mog umeret'?
(Polish) Kto (to) m6gl umrzed?

etc., where discourse features analogous to those indicated for (1) can be ascertained.
The scope of the present article does not allow me to carry out an exhaustive
analysis and description of the facts pointed out above and others related to them (I
have attempted an explanation of some restrictions of our phenomenon, in particular,
of the immunity of w h y - q u e s t i o n s to it, in a separate article, see: Boguslawski,
1996). I shall confine myself to the basic steps of the relevant reasoning.

2. The 'puzzled can' and the Gricean 'generalized conversational implicature'

Let us begin by making the following observation: the occurrences of questions
concerning, in accordance with the inquirer's intention, just any admissible arguments of the verbal complement of c a n , rather than an argument individuated in this
way or another, are, generally speaking, infrequent. This is a consequence of the fact
that, under normal circumstances, first, there is an indefinite multitude of such imaginable arguments, and second, the inquirer is in no worse a position than the possible answerer to indicate them, something which makes the relevant questions practically useless (clearly, some special situations may salvage their purposefulness).
The above observation must be complemented with the following statement; if, in
spite of what has just been said, an 'academic' question about a pure possibility is to
be formulated after all, its wording contains, as a rule or at least quite often, some
marker which helps the hearer to adjust his understanding of the question appropriately.
Above all, the verb c a n may acquire sentential stress, cf.:
(16) He has bought it in a shop, but we absolutely don't know in which one. We
must first ask: where c a n he have bought it? Presumably, only in one of those
shops he visited. So which shops did he visit? [...]
Besides the foremost device of sentential stress on c a n which suggests a scanning
over the whole range of possibilities, there are other expressions which indicate, for

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443

instance, that the inquirer is only interested in an exemplification of the relevant possibilities, cf.:
(17) What newspapers, for example, can he have bought?
(18) What newspapers, among other things, can he have bought?
A corollary of the existence and the wide usage of the special markers of the
'abstract' understanding of wh-questions with can is the fact that their absence from
a given question, in particular, the unstressed character of can, gets easily interpreted
as an index of the individuating purpose of the question. This shift in understanding
can and should be considered pragmatic in nature. More specifically, I submit that
what strongly suggests itself as being at work here is the mechanism of 'generalized
conversational implicature', i.e., the important subcategory in Grice's scheme of secondary, pragmatically motivated interpretations of sentences (Grice, 1975: 56-57)
which he has dubbed that way.
Unfortunately, Grice's exposition of his idea of 'generalized conversational implicature' is very sketchy; it turns on several examples and some brief comments of a
rather general and preliminary character. What I am going to apply to our linguistic
case is my own, more elaborate, interpretation of a certain domain of comprehension
phenomena. Still, I emphasize that this interpretation is by no means independent of
Grice's thoughts.
First, I shall try to capture the core sense of 'generalized conversational implicature' by stating a pragmatic principle of understanding expressions that are currently
used against the background of related expressions which are not currently used.
This principle refers to a kind of dependence whose effect can most briefly be summarized as 'tacit denial'; and it is the latter locution, TD for short, which I choose as
the label of the principle. Here is its formulation:
(TD) the absence of a particular expression eJ where another paradigmatically
related expression e i occurs suggests the validity of the negation of the content
of eJ to the hearer, provided it does not contradict ei and provided certain
favourable circumstances are present
The dependence encapsulated in (TD) is an aspect of the systemic character of the
workings of language in general, as well as of the importance of negativity in language: it leads from the realization of the absence of some expression to the propensity to accept the negation of what it means. However, this dependence assumes its
force by far not automatically; some necessary conditions must be satisfied should
the negative mental state just mentioned install itself. And this is quite understandable: given that there are usually more expressions than one which display some paradigmatic competitiveness with regard to an expression currently used in an utterance, the question immediately arises: the content of which expression(s) is going to
be dismissed (in favour of its negation)? Moreover, it is obvious that the use of the
full generalizing force of expressions (without any kind of tailoring them down by
these exclusions or other) must be safeguarded where necessary.

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A. Bo~ustawski /Journal o/ Pragmatics 27 (I 997) 439-455

1 shall put forth three constraints as limiting the rise of "generalized conversational
implicature' in the sense of (TD) (apart from the obvious 'no contradiction' requirement). They read as follows:
(I) ei and eJ are technically commensurable
(II) the context is such that attention is directed to one of some two different
subclasses of the class to which e i (the expression present in the text) corresponds, while the thought about the other subclass to which the missing expression ei corresponds is being suppressed (it should be borne in mind that a subclass taken into consideration may be either proper or improper, i.e., one of
those subclasses may be improper in that it is equal to the relevant class as a
whole)
(1II) the statistical speech correlation of the missing expression ei, under a particular
speech pattern adopted by the speaker and the hearer, with a given kind of
object O such that the pattern in question applies whenever the relevant speakers are aware that what is currently referred to is in fact subsumed under O is
radically higher than the corresponding statistical speech correlation of e~ (the
expression present in the text) with O, other things being equal
Let us illustrate the above constraints by supplying some appropriate positive and
negative examples.
Examples of constraint (I): A positive example (drawing upon one of Grice's
illustrations):
(19) John has made an appointment with a woman.
Here, we may take the expression his sister as the missing expression eJ which is paradigmatically related to the expression a w o m a n as ei in (19). The absence of the
expression his sister from (19) is likely to function as pragmatically equivalent to the
negation of the content 'his sister'. And we may observe that the expression his sister is technically commensurable with a w o m a n ; as it happens, either expression is
three syllables long (needless to say, 'technical commensurability' of expressions
must not be made overly precise).
A negative example:
(20) John met an army member whose rank was higher than that of top sergeant.
Here, the expression g e n e r a l is missing, but this lack can hardly give rise to the
thought that the person 'John' met is not an army general; rather, the rank of the person remains indeterminate between, say, that of lieutenant and that of four-star general. And one of the reasons is that the speaker surprises the hearer by going to the
pains of using the complicated description which is clearly incommensurable (in
technical terms) with the simple phrase a g e n e r a l or even an a r m y general. The matter is quite different for

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445

(21) John met an officer.

or

(22) John met an army officer.

which can serve as further positive examples of constraint (1): (21 ) or (22) may easily suggest that the person in question was not a general; and one of the reasons why
this is possible is simply the obvious technical commensurability of the expressions
an officer and a general or an army officer and an army general.
Examples of constraint (II): A positive example:
(23) Not far away.
as St Athanasius' answer to his persecutor's question about where St Athanasius
was, a question they asked him as they met him in a boat rowing in the opposite
direction than they were (the story is told by Geach, 1977:114). The expression not
f a r away used as an answer implies that the place of the object referred to is being
determined relative to the hearer's place. Thus, the description 'not far away' did
cover, albeit was not limited to, a place which could rightly be described as opposite
you, an expression St Athanasius did not use. The thought about such a place was,
however, suppressed by the situation of the inquirer's talking precisely to St Athanasius as to a person whom they wrongly believed to be a 'third party'. It is worth
noting that the expressions not f a r away and opposite you (the latter as ei missing
from st Athanasius' utterance) obviously meet constraint (I) as well.
A negative example:
(24) From a long distance, John saw a woman on the hill.
Here, the expression his sister paradigmatically related to the expression a woman is
missing like in (19). But the context is in no way conducive (unlike in (19)) to canceiling the possibility of the object referred to being 'John's' sister. And the hearer,
accordingly, is not likely to derive the same negative 'generalized conversational
implicature' as in the case of (19).
Examples of constraint (IIl): A positive example:
(25) I saw a woman yesterday.
(26) Yesterday, I saw a woman whom I had met exactly two years ago in London.
Here, in a conversation with someone who expects the speaker to refer to his sister,
mother, etc., as, respectively, my sister, my mother, etc., in accordance with a speech
pattern they have adopted, the lack of such expressions pragmatically amounts to the
exclusion of 'the speaker's sister', 'the speaker's mother', etc., from the scope of the
persons the speaker could have in mind.

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A. Bogustawski / Journal of Pragmatics 27 (1997) 439~155

Another positive example is furnished by the following:

(27) (Polish) We2my rybk~. ~Let's take fish (as a snack)'
Here, the missing expression ei is ~ledzika 'a herring as a snack'; there are good
chances (in a certain milieu) that the hearer will interpret this as a proposal to change
the relevant menu, by relinquishing herrings. And this is true despite the fact that
herrings form a subclass of fish and can be called rybka, i.e. by the name used in
(27) and denoting the whole class (superordinate with regard to the subclass of herrings), no less than any other kinds, i.e. subclasses, of fish. The reason why herrings
are likely to be opted out is that the word which is statistically prevailing and widely
expected (in that milieu and under the relevant circumstances) to be used as the
name of object O, in our case, of herring, should O be in fact referred to, is precisely
gledzik, rather than rybka (even if the latter is, after all, possible with such reference,
too).
A negative example:
(28) I have to feed my dog.
Here, no generalized conversational implicature to the effect that the dog in question
is not a terrier is activated, although the word terrier is absent from (28). And the
reason is simply that terriers and other kinds of dog are referred to, predominantly
and in most situations (in particular, according to the speech pattern we may assume
to be valid for (28), as (28) can be most naturally looked upon), by using, of all
names, the word dog; even dogs' masters call their pets, more often than not, just
dogs.
If we now apply the enriched notion of generalized conversational implicature (in
the sense of (TD)) to the situation of the verb can in our wh-questions as exemplified by (1), it appears that, according to all the above criteria, the unstressed can
should indeed suggest the individuating interpretation.
First, the unstressed and the stressed can are obviously commensurable in technical terms.
Second, the context of utterances exemplified by (1) is apt to suppress the thought
about the improper subclass of the relevant class, i.e., the subclass which is equal to
that class a whole. This improper subclass (and, by the same token, the class) also
corresponds to the missing expression CAN have died (with sentential stress on can);
it includes all persons whose death at the relevant moment is not logically impossible, i.e., it only excludes those who had died earlier or who have not yet been born.
Third, the statistical speech correlation of the stressed can in CAN have died with
the thought about the abstract, general possibility of having died is radically higher
than the statistical speech correlation of the unstressed can in can have DIED with the
same thought (in comparable situations, i.e., other things being equal).
Thus, under the above requirements applied to 'generalized conversational implicature' (in the sense of (TD)), we are fully justified to accept the idea that the very
absence of the stressed can and the presence of its unstressed counterpart in (1) (as

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447

well as in similar questions) 'cancels', so to speak, the thought of an abstract possibility and pragmatically secures the reduction of the interpretation of (1) to the one
proper to
(29) Who can be that person who has died and whom I (or: we) have in mind'?
This closes the first part of our analysis. Still, there remain two further questions
that have to be answered. First: why is it that the individuating interpretation of our
wh-questions leads to identical answers to both the questions with can and the questions without can? And second: how does the impression of 'puzzlement concerning
the identity of the argument', which has drawn our attention in the first place, arise?
As we have seen, this impression is obviously attached to the presence of the verb
can and is absent (at any rate, in its special form and degree we are interested in)
when the verb can is not used.
The latter problem is of particular importance since the impression under consideration apparently constitutes the very raison d'etre of the questions illustrated with
(1). Should that impression never arise, what would be the purpose of having the
more complex interrogative forms at all? Indeed, questions like (2) elicit the same
answers as questions like (1) while showing a simpler structure as well as being necessary anyway; and they are in fact employed at every turn.
Below, I shall present an attempt at solving the two interconnected puzzles.

3. Equivalence of questions with and without

can

To begin with, I shall adopt the following general and unitary semantic interpretation of the expression can F(a):
(can F(a)) there is no feature G proper to a such that

(i) G ~ F
(ii) G ~: not-F A H [where H ~: G]
(iii) G(a) entails not-F(a)
This conceptual structure is used, primarily, in declarative sentences. But it
remains valid for wh-questions as well.
Still, there are some special features of wh-questions one must attend to; for my
interpretation of wh-questions, see (Boguslawski, 1979, 1986a). The semantic pivotstone of wh-questions is the idea of equivalence of some concept outside a given
question with the concept presented in it at its so-called datum quaestionis. In a
direct question, furthermore, a suggestion is made to effectively find some such
implicit, external concept which would be equivalent with the one immediately presented as datum quaestionis.
Now, the way of presenting the latter, explicit, concept in wh-questions is somewhat complicated. For the most basic and most natural occurrences of (can F(a)) in
wh-questions this way of presentation can be characterized as follows: the concept

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A. Bogustawski /Journal of Pragmatics 27 (1997) 439-455

presented is the concept of 'possible F'; its representation is an outcome of several

elements conspiring to yield the necessary conceptual structure: first of all, it is the
questioner (which, however, also serves other purposes), next, it is the verb can,
finally, it is the verbal complement of can and, if necessary, some other expressions
or expression features present in the sentence.
All of this can be illustrated with
(7) Who CAN have died'?
along the following lines. The concept presented in (7) is 'person who can have
died'; the component 'person' is given in the questioner who. What is put forth in
(7) as desirable is finding another concept which is equivalent to that one. And it is
fairly evident that such an equivalent concept is '(any) person who has died or is
alive'. Another equivalent concept would be that of the alternative of all those persons who have died or are alive (at the moment of speech); in other words, a concept whose embodiment might also have the form of a list of the persons satisfying
the conditions of 'having died or being alive'.
However, the semantic formula (can F(a)) is very comprehensive. It does not in any
way constrain the selection of what is to be substituted for F, for G, for H, and for a in
it. And it is this selection which plays the decisive part in the ultimate interpretation.
In particular, a need not be an individual of the basic category, i.e., a thing or a
person. It may also be a concept. And here the following option appears to be open.
Suppose the stuff of the question, under given contextual circumstances, prompts
one to think of a concept of an individuated existing argument somehow described
in the question. Now, in accordance with the general nature of questions (and questioners forming them), another concept is being looked for, a concept which displays
equivalence with regard to that concept, to the concept of an individuated existing
argument. So a in our schema can be taken to stand for that unknown concept displaying equivalence with the concept of the individuated existing argument.
In this case, the explicit concept is represented by the combination of the questioner and the verbal complement of can (possibly, with some remaining material of
the sentence): but that combination does not include, in contradistinction to the case
we have considered earlier on, the word can. This kind of concept (concept of an
individuated existing argument) is pragmatically suggested under certain contextual
circumstances as discussed before; as we have seen, the crucial and indispensable
factor which brings about this result is the unstressed character of can.
To obtain a suitable example, we may turn again to our initial paradigmatic sentence (1). The concept suggested both by the material in (1) (to the exclusion of
can!) and by the contextual environment is that of
(30) the person who has died and about whom the interlocutors think as the one who
has died
This concept can be expressed by the concatenation who has died, but also by means
of the combination of who and have died in who can have died (have died, and not

A. Bogustawski / Journal of Pragmatics 27 (I 997) 439~455

449

can have died!). However, (1), as a question, implies, at the same time, that (30) is
equivalent to another concept which it is desirable to reveal. Clearly, any definite
description other than (30) can do as the requested item, provided it is equivalent to
(30). Such a definite description may also be alluded to with the aid of a proper
name, e.g., P e t e r (cf. (3)), a pronoun or in other ways.
Under the circumstances just indicated, the verb can does not form part of the
exponent of the target concept whose equivalent is to be found. The verb can
becomes in a way released from its attachment to the verbal complement and
switched so as to turn into an appendix to the questioner. Its lexical force does not
change (contrary to what I claimed in Boguslawski, 1986b: 48fn.). But this time, it
is in service of another object and it qualifies other features that are spoken about. It
turns out that we have here to do with one more phenomenon of 'scope' shifts as
responsible for different content effects of sentences with the same lexical material:
such effects have been investigated fruitfully by Boguslavskij (see, in particular,
Boguslavskij, 1985, 1991).
The object which the verb can as it is used in (1) is in service of is the as yet
unknown definite description which is being sought by the inquirer and which
should be equivalent to (30). This unrevealed description plays the part of a in (can
F(a)). Its feature the speaker is interested in, i.e., F (from the schema (can F(a)), consists in its being equivalent to (30). And it is this unrevealed description which is
characterized with the help of the word can. The word can characterizes it in accordance with its general semantic properties. The new application (not meaning!) of
(can F(a)) may be described as follows:

(can E(c)) there is no feature P proper to c such that

(i)

P~E

(ii) P not-E/X R [where R P]

(iii) P(c) entails not-E(c)
Here, E may stand for 'equivalent to (30)', and c, for the replacement of a in (can
F(a)) along the lines of the above discussion, i.e., for the concept the speaker is in
quest of.
Let us elaborate. The purport of (can F(a)) boils down, for our particular case (1),
to the following. The wording of sentence (1) one constituent of which is the verb
can says that a concept is sought none of whose properties prevent it from being
equivalent to (30). Now, the only possible obstacle of this kind is the fact that some
concept is not equivalent to (30). Therefore, the wording of (1) requires that all the
concepts which are not equivalent to (30) be rejected or declined. As a result, we
may say that the concept sought for is characterized as 'free from any inequivalence
with respect to (30)'. Clearly, such a concept, a concept which is not inequivalent to
(30), is equivalent to (30). This is why it does not differ from a concept which satisfies the demands of the simple question W h o has died? What is expected by the
author of the latter question is precisely being offered a description different from
'the person who has died according to the indications the speaker possesses', but
e q u i v a l e n t to it. (Let me note, at this point, that the observation of the 'near-syn-

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A. Bogustawski / Journal ~f Pragmati~'s 27 (1997) 439~155

onymity' of questions with and without the Russian counterpart of can in 'ignorarive' contexts, as opposed to contexts of 'positive judgement', has been made by
Bulygina and Smelev, 1988: 54.)
In this way, we have formulated what seems to be a plausible solution of the first
puzzle to which this section has been devoted: the puzzle of the identity of answers
to questions like (1) and to questions like (2). We may say that this identity is due to
a kind of 'double negation' which is involved, according to our description, in questions like (1) and which is absent from simple questions of type (2).

4. The 'puzzlement' effect of

can

The same phenomenon of 'double negation' brought about by the use of can
hopefully explains the second and main part of our puzzle: the vexing dilemma of
the 'puzzlement' coefficient which distinguishes questions with can from those
without it.
The point is that, as is shown in (can E(c)), the equivalent concept to be found
is contrasted, by the insertion of can, with the background of i n e q u i v a l e n t concepts. It is precisely the meaning of the word can which highlights the presence of
a host of inequivalent concepts; such concepts in a way prevail and their prior elimination is indispensable for an equivalent concept to be singled out (if this is at all
possible).
The flexibility of can as an instrument of imparting the impression of puzzlement
can be demonstrated by accounting, in terms of the analysis carried out thus far, for
a broader area of its use (or non-use). What 1 have in mind is, in particular, the
domain of indirect questions. Attention must be drawn to the fact that although our
can is typically used in direct questions, it is by no means confined to them.
Notice that, in the case of indirect questions, it would often be inappropriate to
talk about the s p e a k e r ' s puzzlement. Consider, for example:
(31) Just guess where I can have put it!
Here, the difficulty of finding an equivalent concept, i.e., a concept equivalent to 'the
place where I have put it', is looked upon by the speaker as something the addressee,
rather than he himself, faces. But this difficulty is derivative with regard to the
purely logical aspect of the wording, no less than in the examples discussed previously: the addressee is called upon to eliminate all the i n e q u i v a l e n t concepts; and in
the situation at hand which is so easy to imagine it is such inequivalent concepts that
attack him from all sides.
Examples (32)-(34) may be particularly instructive:
(32) ? I shall guess where you can have put it.
(33) I shall guess where you have put it.
(34) I shall be trying to guess where you can have put it.

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451

Here, (32), unlike (33), is questionable. (33) is incomparably more plausible than
(32) in the kind of situation that first occurs to one when one is confronted with the
two sentences.
Why is it? Because we are apt to think of a speaker who is exclusively interested
in finding an answer to the question of 'where you have put it' and who predicts his
effectively finding a concept which constitutes such an answer. Yet, the formulation
of (32) suggests, on the face of it, that the object of the solution (which is predicted
to materialize in the future),will be the absence of the logical feature of inequivalence to the description 'the place where you have put it' as proper to some concept.
This kind of achievement looks fairly perverse: in fact, it is too inordinary to be seriously contemplated by a normal speaker.
Let us add that the kind of phrasing as given in (32) is to be avoided also on the
following grounds: it gives rise to a hesitation on account of whether the speaker
will solve, after all, the problem of the place where the addressee has put the object
in question or whether he will solve the entirely different problem of the set of
places where the addressee can have put it (could put it or might have put it).
This may usefully be contrasted with (34) where merely the continuing efforts
to find the solution of the problem of 'where the addressee has put it' are depicted.
In this case, it makes perfect sense to present the addressee with the 'struggle'
between the equivalent and inequivalent concepts before the court of the speaker's
judgement.
And even though the unstressed can is by no means obligatory or mandatory in
such cases, it is readily resorted to as a valuable and, practically speaking, irreplaceable tool of indicating, in a subtle manner, the additional particularities of the
situation.
This indication is brought home to the hearer in a pragmatic, rather than semantic,
fashion. But its source is the true, and unitary, semantic load, i.e., meaning, of can in
its special syntactic setting.

5. The 'puzzled can' and the interface of semantics, syntax and pragmatics
I think the facts I have analyzed provide an interesting illustration of the phenomena of the interface of semantics, syntax and pragmatics.
What is of some special methodological importance in our fragment of language
is the fact that it supplies a rather clear instance of syntactic-semantic entities which
must be characterized, not just at the immanent levels of syntax and semantics isolated from the pragmatic level, but by invoking some effects of pragmatic factors. To
be more specific: there are semantic entities that operate on data which are obtained
pragmatically from other semantic entities, rather than on objects which can be
described in purely semantic terms. Thus, we might say that semantic, syntactic and
pragmatic components sometimes yield a sort of layer-cake.
The linguistic instance exemplifying this which I can point to as emerging from
our consideration is the syntactic-semantic category of 'brief answer to a wh-question'; one specimen of this category has been shown in (3).

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A. Boguslawski /,lournal ~?['Pra~matics27 (1997) 439-455

The embodiment of this kind of answer is, normally, a bare NP corresponding to

the valency place marked with a wh-expression in the relevant propositional function
(as presented in a given wh-question), a function thought of by the speaker. The
functor of such a propositional function is expected to be equal to the VP directly
present or duly modified in the question. Thus, for who died, the propositional function is __ died, for who wanted to die, it is __ wanted to die, for what did she buy fi,"
him, it is she bought f o r
him, etc.
However, our pair:
(35) - Who can have died?
- Peter.
where Peter corresponds to __ has died, rather than to __ can have died, shows that
the propositional function the speaker has in mind may differ from the basic pattern
just recalled.
In order to know what is to count as the propositional function activated in a given
wh-question, the function he is to measure up to in his answer operation, the speaker
must rely on certain pragmatic considerations, in addition to the semantic, lexical
and syntactic material he is confronted with and operating on. In this article, I have
tried to shed some light on the nature of those pragmatic considerations.

6. Appendix: Is there any alternative interpretation available?

As I have mentioned at a certain place in this article, 1 once entertained the idea
of having a separate can conveying 'puzzlement' in wh-questions. For reasons
explained earlier on, this proposition must be regarded as just one more example of
crude, picklocklike descriptive solutions which show reckless lavishness in multiplying 'meanings'; nonetheless, they are, most unfortunately, extremely widespread
in linguistic practice.
Palmer (1965:117) is to be credited with devoting about ten lines to the occurrences of can in questions where, as he put it, phrases without can do more or less
the same job; he mentioned this type of use in a section dealing with can of 'possibility', but expressed a conjecture to the effect that it may deserve being isolated as
a self-contained function.
A similar remark on the mutual closeness of some Russian utterances with and
without mo~et 'can' has been made by Bulygina and Smelev (1988: 54).
I would now like to discuss briefly two further attempts to explain our 'puzzled
can'; 1 have been confronted with them in the course of my presentation of the
analyses I am inclined to approve of.
One of these intended explanations runs as follows: The speaker of, say, (1),
immediately prior to his utterance, is convinced that no one (in a specifiable circle of
persons) can have died. Upon learning that someone has died, after all, he concedes
(on the basis of the entailment F(a) -+ can F(a)) that someone can have died, but
thinks no one else can have died. Therefore, he is eager to identify the one who can

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453

have died and has indeed died; accordingly, he formulates the question about to
whom the possibility of death applies in this case (hence, he uses the expression can
have died); he deems this possibility quite exceptional and thus puzzling; the hearer
follows suit and reads the speaker's puzzlement off the construction with can.
Unfortunately, this explanation flies in the face of reality. It is evident that a normal speaker of (1) is fully aware that many people, even among those he may really
think of, not just arbitrary human beings, can have died; in fact, he is aware that any
particular living person can have died. And upon learning that someone HAS died, he
is of course far from thinking that only one person can have surprised him by dying.
But, above all, attention must be drawn to the simple fact that, under the circumstances applying to (1), the following utterance appears to be absolutely unexceptionable and can, moreover, be accepted as wholly sincere:
(36) I of course have been aware all along that many people can have died, but, anyway, who can have died?
This clashes with what the explanation in question makes us expect, viz. that (36) is
either deviant through and through or at least insincere.
Furthermore, the explanation still leaves it as a puzzle why it is that the answer
(3) Peter.
is equivalent to 'Peter has died', rather than to 'Peter can have died'. The explanation takes it for granted that the subject the utterer of (1) is seeking is the subject of
can have died, not of has died. Yet, it is the subject of the latter the utterer is interested in. This conclusion follows from the fact that the relevant discourse properties
both are in harmony with that characteristic of the subject and in conflict with the
supposition that (3) merely states in a direct way that Peter can have died (and only
secondarily, indirectly, suggests that he HAS died): had (3) acted in that way, it
would have allowed for the continuation but he has not died; however, such a continuation is inadmissible (it engenders a contradiction).
The other explanatory suggestion presented to me tries to interpret can in (1) as
meaning 'it is probable that [__ has died]'. Accordingly, (3) is interpreted as 'it is
probable that the one who has died is Peter'. The clash between P e t e r in (3) and the
continuation but P e t e r has not died is then explained as epistemic in nature, rather
than as a result of a contradiction in the strict sense; i.e., it is deemed similar to the
kind of incoherence known from the famous
(37) It's raining, but I don't believe it.
This explanation is based on the assumption that the response to (1) in the form of
(38) Peter can have died, but he has not died.
is pragmatically deviant, too (in this respect, it is, according to the author of the
explanation, no different from

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A. Bogustawski / Journal of Pragmatics 27 (1997) 439--455

(4) Peter, but Peter has not died.),

and that the reason why it is is precisely the same kind of epistemic incoherence (on
the one hand, the author of (38) says it is probable that Peter has died, on the other
hand, he himself denies it).
The suggestion just presented must be dismissed already for the simple reason that
its last premise is factually wrong. (38), as opposed to (3), does not suffer from any
epistemic incoherence, outside the context of question (1) or otherwise. In the context of question (1), it is merely underinformative because the utterer of question (1)
wants a definitive answer whereas response (38) adds, to be sure, some reasonable
supplementary information loosely relevant to the question, but sidesteps the crux of
the matter which is the problem of 'who has died', rather than 'who has not died'.
The deep difference between (3) and (38) is easily seen as soon as we notice what
continuations of the relevant exchanges are possible: next to (3), it is inappropriate
to ask:
(39) Well, but who HAS died?
but the same question becomes fully appropriate when it succeeds (38) or
(40) It is probable that the one who has died is Peter.
What is particularly annoying in the suggestion now under consideration is the old
error of frivolously inventing multiple meanings where no such multiplicity of
meanings can be p r o v e d to exist. In our case, this applies to the word can and the
well known myth of its would-be separate meanings: epistemic, deontic, physical,
moral, etc. As regards the specific case of positing a new, independent expression
can with the meaning 'is probable', it amounts to nothing less than creating a sort of
semantic centaur: it will be remembered that probability admits of degrees whereas
can never does.
One might think that the legitimate question: 'Is any interpretation of the 'puzzled
can' available that would constitute a viable alternative to what has been proposed in
this article?' has been answered in the negative. It has not. In any case, my possible
negative answer could hardly count as credible enough.

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